A blog expanding on the subjects discussed in our movie "Science Sex and the Ladies." We blog critically on a specific intersection of science, sexuality, and feminism; particularly paying attention to how female sexual response is discussed, portrayed, and studied in our culture. So...if you're interested in science, sex, lady stuff, or indie movie making...this is the blog for you.

8.30.2015

Good SSL Insight at Beatroute

"(the movie) makes a great case for the need for a societal shift in the importance of understanding female sexuality so that, quite frankly we, as ladies, can get off! And regularly!"

I say quite on-point because sometimes I see things like this Beatroute review about SSL that seemed like the writer watched the movie and really thought about the argument the movie makes, and sometimes I see things that seem like the writer watched the movie but really only focused or cared about one or two particular aspects, and didn't seem to quite take in the full argument. And I'm not talking about the difference between positive and negative reviews or anything like that. It's just that sometimes I feel like the larger argument about an all-encompassing cultural misunderstanding of female orgasm and sexuality that needs to be remedies by a big ol' shift in perspective, is either not gotten through to a particular reviewer or they found it not worthwhile to talk about, so I like it when I see that point getting through.

She also wrote some pretty good quotes too that made me feel like our point of view was getting through the way we wanted it to.

"...while it’s not one to shy away from nudity, it’s done so as a means to reveal what’s really going on in the world of women and sex. That is, it’s done so tastefully and is not something you’re going to want to necessarily wank to."

So, to be fair the only nudity in the movie is some shots staring directly and close-up into spread-eagle vulvas (3 to be exact). Oh - there is pink, plenty of pink, so technically this kind of nudity does not make it into Playboy or R-rated movies, only hard-core porn and dirtier magazines like Hustler and Cheri. So, that's really it, but it's a big wallop of nudity. Anyway, It was actually incredibly important to us, when making the movie, that we didn't make it unnecessarily sexy like all the sex-umentaries we were seeing on HBO and the like where it's basically just people being interviewed about a particular aspect of sex and a lot of b-roll of women doing and moaning sexy things - like really soft-core porn. So, I was glad to see that she didn't feel like anyone would want to wank to it. It was kind of a goal of ours.

Then she's going over the route the movie takes in it's argument and during that says,

"It moves on to pornography, but manages to do so in a way that doesn’t make it sound too for or against it."

I liked this too, because we really tried to be careful about how we spoke about and depicted porn and porn stars in this movie. Porn is such a contentious subject that the wrong vibe about it can turn of a large group of people from anything that is said from that time forward. Plus, the point we are making is not for or against porn, it's just about porn, and we really wanted to make it feel that way - that porn is a valid, fine thing, but there is an aspect of it that needs to get better. We also wanted to make sure we didn't seem like we were calling porn star ladies out for like ruining the sexual culture or being dumb or being too complacent/non-feminist - because we weren't, but that's a feeling, either intentional or not, that is given off from a lot of porn criticism. For porn, as with many of the other cultural institutions we critiqued, we see the problem as much larger and deeper than the current players in those institutions. We felt it important to lay the blame on no-one but make everyone feel responsible for change. So, my point is, it really felt good to me that she felt that sort of nonchalantness we were hoping to convey when speaking about porn...because it is actually something I worried a lot about during pre-production.

Okay, so I want to thank Ms. Jess Parker over there at Beatroute. It looks like she is often writing good shit over there, so check it out, and read the full SSL review HERE.